Structure dataset 41: Sri Lanka Portuguese

Sri Lanka Portuguese is spoken by a dwindling number of the island’s Burgher ethnic group, descendants of unions between (primarily) Portuguese and Dutch men and local women. Speakers are still found in the Tamil-dominant east coast towns of Batticaloa and Trincomalee. The spoken varieties of these two towns exhibit only minor differences. Many of the South Asian characteristics of these varieties were also exhibited by speakers in the Sinhala-dominant region of the island. In addition, there existed a formal register displaying more European than South Asian morphosyntax. This register can be found in the 19th century literature, but by the 1970s, it was only poorly known by a very small number of speakers. Its origin is moot: was it a holdover of an earlier spoken variety or (my view) an artificial norm created by Anglophone missionaries, who began to use the language for evangelical purposes in the early 1800’s? The default lect documented in APiCS is the spoken variety of Batticaloa in the 1970s. Examples are taken mostly from my field notes of 1974-5.

Examples labelled speculation have been constructed by the linguist on the basis of parallel constructions in neighbouring languages. The implication is that if a native speaker were available, it is reasonable to expect they would approve this construction.